Meet the Director

Eileen D’Angelo and the Mad Poets are everywhere, turning up the volume and fueling poetry unceasingly. Without them, the region would be sadder and way too quiet. ~Barb Daniels

Eileen M. D’Angelo, MPS Director

Eileen D’Angelo a paralegal by day and a mad poet at night, has been nominated for a Pennsylvania Governor's Award in the Arts and was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, by Verse Magazine and Schuylkill Valley Journal. She judged Philadelphia area poets in open auditions for the HBO pilot/series, Def Poetry Jam and also for the Four State Poetry Slam, sponsored by Minority Business Focus, at New Market Cabaret in Philadelphia. Her manuscript, True Tales from the Home Front, was a finalist in both the University of North Carolina’s Palanquin Press Chapbook Competition and Byline Chapbook Competition, and she was a finalist for the Eve of St. Agnes Poetry Award from Negative Capability Press. She has read her work on several television arts programs: WXPN’s (88.5 fm) World Cafe Live, and Cafe Improv, a live television broadcast in Princeton, NJ, and surrounding areas.; and on “Poet’s Pause” on BCTV-Berks County Community Television. She was interviewed by Kenn Michael for WBIY (88.1 fm) for the Lehigh Valley following a performance in Bethlehem, and by Dee Patel of KYW-1060 News Radio in Philadelphia. A two time finalist in the Allen Ginsberg Competition sponsored by the Paterson Literary Review, Eileen has been the Director of the Mad Poets Society since 1987 and has coordinated over 1,500 special events, including poetry readings, ongoing monthly series, competitions, workshops, festivals, conferences, student events and more, approximately 70 to 80 poetry readings per year since 1990. She has served as Editor of the Mad Poets Review since the first issue in 1990, and was a Contributing Editor for the literary journal, HELLAS, A Journal of Arts and Humanities.

Her poetry and book reviews have been published widely in national and international magazines and literary journals including (partial listing) Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century, Paterson Literary Review, Wild River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Drexel Online Journal, One Trick Pony, Philadelphia Poets, Manhattan Poetry Review, Voices International, New Hope International (in the United Kingdom), Canada Writer's Quarterly, Jam To-Day, Midwest Poetry Review, Verse, Negative Capability, The Aurealean, Bitterroot Poetry Journal, Odessa Poetry Review, Independent Review, General Eclectic, Bookends, HiNgE Online, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Amherst American Poetry Annual, The Philadelphia Poetry Forum Anthology, Moonstone Anthology, Pennsylvania Poetry Society Prize Poems and others. Portions of one of her poetry readings at Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse in Bethehem was aired on WBIY (88.1 fm) Lehigh Valley. Eileen is a songwriter, poet and author of three collections of poetry, Shooting Stars, Nightwinds and Love Songs, and two upcoming books in progress, True Tales from the Home Front and The Recovering Catholics Collection. She has lectured, taught and/or performed poetry & music throughout the Greater Philadelphia area.

An advocate for domestic abuse awareness, Eileen is the founder and coordinator of Arts Against Abuse, multimedia arts events for the benefit of the Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County, which have raised over $14,000 for the cause to date; and in addition, 100% of the proceeds from her most recent chapbook, Growing up with a Vengeance, as well as collection of poems she edited, Hush: Poems of Survivors of Domestic Abuse are donated to benefit Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County. In 2005, she was awarded the 23rd Annual Victims Rights Award from the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office and the Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County.